


City of Lights

by Abalidoth



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, F/F, Humanstuck, Multi, Paris - Freeform, fashion - Freeform, request fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 12:24:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abalidoth/pseuds/Abalidoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fashionstuck AU. Feferi, Kanaya, and Aradia attend a fashion show in Paris, but not everything goes as perfectly as they'd hoped. Written as part of a giveaway on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	City of Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of a giveaway on Tumblr. Prompt: "Aradia/Feferi or Aradia/Kanaya visiting Paris, France. (or just France in general). Thanks for being such an awesome writer!"
> 
> I opted to write them as an OT3, with the submitter's permission.

Your name is Feferi Peixes, and the excitement of Paris is already starting to wear off.

It started off so wonderfully, though, from the moment you stepped off the plane and through the streets to the hotel. Bad luck and ill-timed career changes had kept you from the City of Lights so far, but when you’re the personal assistant to one of the hottest young fashion designers on the LA circuit, Paris is an inevitability. You had built it up in your mind, carefully ignoring reports from friends and colleagues who came back from France shaking their heads.

Kanaya and Aradia (fashion designer, model, and your lovers both) tried to warn you. They’d done this song and dance before, and told you how much work it was going to be for all of you, but you still let the excitement get the better of you. You worked on ledgers and publicity work the whole plane ride over, forgoing the sleep you really should have tried for the night before, just so you could see more of the sights. And all the way from the airport to the hotel, it seemed like things were going well. The streets were charming, the monuments were larger than life, and everything was so very French.

But now, you’ve been standing in the lobby of a  _very_  expensive hotel (you haven’t told Kanaya just how expensive; she doesn’t want to know that sort of thing, that’s what she has  _you_  for) watching Kanaya argue with the clerk in French for twenty solid minutes. The other people in line try to shoot the two of you disgruntled looks and mostly fail. Aradia, all trim lines and quiet poise, deflects their attention. And your modeling days aren’t  _so_  far behind you that you don’t soak up some of the notice, too.

Kanaya growls something acidic at the clerk in Farsi and slips him a fifty Euro note. He tries to hide his satisfaction as she stalks back to the two of you. “It seems they have a policy against renting single king bed rooms to three people.”

“Well, I guess they’re just traditional here,” you say, but the clerk’s giving you the hairy eyeball and some of the magic is already gone.

Kanaya is still fuming by the time you make it up to the room. “Special circumstances. Right. Like it’s much more expensive to keep a room for three than for one?”

“I think that’s the point,” Aradia says. She gives you a bit of a raised eyebrow — she’s the newest partner in your little group, and she’s not used to some of Kanaya’s more extreme caprices yet. You nod, and she goes on. “Don’t they want to charge us for multiple rooms?”

Kanaya shrugs and keys the door open. “Well, he didn’t have to be rude about it.”

The bellhop was quick; your luggage cart is already there. You’ve color tagged all of the suitcases by owner and contents. Aradia commented when you did it that it looked like a sticker factory blew up, but at least you’ve got a  _system_ , and it  _works_ , and besides you just like colors, okay? That discussion had ended right then, because she hadn’t really been able to argue, and she was afraid her underwear bag would get mismarked if she kept distracting you.

As you step into the plushly-appointed room, you apportion out the luggage. Kanaya grabs the teal-sticker bags and sets up at the desk, putting together the best portable tailoring suite that money can buy. There had been trouble getting her bags through customs — turns out that very high-end Singer sergers look a lot like terrorist paraphernalia to suspicious French checkpoint agents — but you managed to get it taken care of without involving Kanaya. That was the part of your job that you took the most pride in. The thousand little things that came with running a successful clothing line would be too much for her. You, however, are  _just_  scatterbrained enough to handle everything that escapes her laser-like focus. And as for Aradia…she can handle herself, but she appreciates the help.

Kanaya sets to work on Aradia’s outfits for the show. It’s Thursday night, and the show’s on Saturday, and she doesn’t really have anything to fix anyway, but it keeps her calm to check all her hems and fuss over the stitching, so you just kiss her on the cheek and let her work.

Aradia settles herself on the bed and cracks open the novel she was reading on the plane — some James Michner monstrosity covering a thousand years of archaeology of a city in Israel. It’s exactly her kind of thing, but sounds dull as bricks to you. She manages to look runway perfect, even when wearing travel clothes and holding an airplane novel, and there’s a little spike of jealousy in the middle of your love for her. Sometimes it’s hard not to compare yourself to your lovely companions.

You push that thought away and snuggle in beside Aradia, clipboard in hand, ready to go over tomorrow’s schedule one more time. But your eyelids feel heavy in the middle of the page, and you drift off.

xxx

You wake up early enough the next morning, despite the jet lag, to settle the itinerary and make a few calls. Aradia is still asleep, her book neatly closed and bookmarked on the nightstand. Kanaya, on the other hand, is fully awake and puttering aimlessly around the hotel room while you finish things up. In all your years of working for her, you’ve still never figured out how Kanaya can function on so little sleep.

The first thing on the agenda, after everyone is up and dressed and primped, is a celebratory brunch. This is something you’ve been planning for a while. It’s Kanaya’s first Paris show as a designer in her own right, and it’s Aradia’s and your first visit ever. Paris being the Big Deal that it is, and renowned as a city of celebration, it seemed logical to go somewhere nice. But dinner was out of the question; with the show tomorrow, there’s likely to be too much evening prep work to get done, and Aradia’s always been a little funny about eating before a show anyway. (Whether it was superstition, or just Aradia being Aradia, you’ve never been quite sure. Either way, dinner was not an option.)

So instead, the three of you are out on the town at noon, sitting at a nice restaurant on the Seine. Paris is pretty at a distance, and the city-front across these storied waters is just about the most gorgeous example of human architecture you’ve ever seen. You look out at the people along the riverbank, walking in that self-conscious way that Parisians do when tourists might be watching, and feel amused that they’re putting on a show for your benefit. The idea strikes you as ironic.

The food is phenomenal, of course. You did your research, put in the reservations a month in advance, and carefully hid the receipts from Kanaya. (She gets moody when she has to worry about the money, and when she gets moody she starts designing in  _black fabric_ , and how terrible is that?) Your girlfriends are certainly enjoying themselves. Aradia is nibbling contentedly on lamb medallions, Kanaya is working on her spinach soufflé with an architect-like precision, and you’ve already finished your  _somewhat_  more generous portion of scallops. You turn your gaze from the river to your lovers, and hold up your mimosa.

“To Paris,” you say with as much poetic authority as you can without giggling. ( _Truly_  serious moods are only good for when you have no other choice, not for when you’re eating amazing food with two amazing women in freaking Parisof all places.)

“To Paris,” Kanaya says. “May we show the world what we’re made of.”

“To Paris,” Aradia finishes, her Israeli accent softening the edges of the consonants. “May we return next year, even more in love.”

Your glasses connect with a soft  _clink_ , and you’re starting to feel pretty good about Paris again. Maybe it’s not always as glamorous as you thought it would be, but you’re there for the right reasons, with the right people, and there isn’t much that could ruin that.

But when Aradia stands up, you find out that even extremely nice cafes on the Seine waterfront can have loose tiles on the patio. She cries out, grabs for the table, hits the chair instead, and her left leg twists out from under her. She hits the ground before you can react. You and Kanaya leap up to help her up, but you can already tell by the way that tears are welling up in her eyes and soft little curses are passing her lips that it’s bad.

She tries to tell you she’s okay, but she can’t finish the sentence without wincing and ruining her words, and you wouldn’t believe her anyway. Nothing’s obviously broken, but as the maitre d’ comes out to see what’s the matter and you stop for a moment to pay the bill, you can see her ankle’s already swelling. There will likely be a nasty bruise on one side, too.

You extricate yourself from the mostly-unfeigned sympathy of the maitre d’ and the two of you carry Aradia to the curb and call a cab. You have to hand it to your girlfriends: neither of them is freaking out at all, despite the ugliness of the injury. Aradia is bearing her pain with grace, like she does everything; Kanaya is fussy and worried, but still miraculously collected. You’re not sure how they’re keeping their cool, especially when you feel like you’re going to have a panic attack at any moment.

The early afternoon is spent alternately comforting Aradia (whose calm is beginning to unravel) and navigating the French hospital system with only one Francophone among the three of you. The doctor, thankfully, is very nice and seems very interested in Aradia’s well-being (who  _wouldn’t_  be?). The sun is starting to dip behind the buildings by the time you’re back in the hotel, but it’s not quite dinner time yet.

Aradia rests on the bed, her leg in a splint. Fortunately nothing is broken; it’s just a torn ligament and a bit of a sprain, and she’s used crutches once or twice before. But there’s a question unspoken, hanging in the room and mingling with the faint odor of cigarette smoke.

Kanaya is the first to break the silence. “What are we going to do tomorrow?”

“I guess we watch the show, and go home,” you say, already rearranging itineraries in your head. You’ve re-planned your trip six and a half times since Aradia fell. It doesn’t need to be done again, but it does keep your brain busy. “Unless you think you can get a replacement model.”

“No, no, I couldn’t do that.” Kanaya waves the idea away. “You know me. The reason I picked up Aradia in the first place is because I have to know someone well to design clothes for them. I can’t just let Aradia’s clothes hang off of some… _stranger_.”

You’re not sure of the logic of that, but she put an odd emphasis on the word “stranger,” and now she’s looking at you with an expression that can only be described as calculating. And a little…hungry. “No,” you say. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Feferi, darling, who else could do it but you? I can make the clothes work. I know every inch of you.”

You blush and shake your head. “No, no, no! I’m  _done_  modeling. I’ve been done with it for years. I’m not in shape for it, I’m out of— _stop looking at me like that!_ ”

“Please?”

It’s so  _weird_  to see her begging. “What? No! They wouldn’t let me sub in anyway, not on this short notice!”

“The organizer owes me some favors,” Kanaya says. “I could make it happen.”

“If they owe you favors, why couldn’t they get you a substitute model?!”

“Kanaya,” Aradia interrupts firmly, breaking her silence. “Why do you want her to do this so badly?”

Kanaya looks away, a bit ashamed. “I never get to show you off.”

“What?” you ask.

She looks up, straight into your eyes. “I’m in love with two wonderful women and I only ever get to show  _one_  of them off.”

“It’s not like I’m jealous of Ary or anything.” You look over at Aradia, who even made her hospital gown look like high fashion. “Okay, I am a  _little_ jealous.”

Aradia laughs. “Why would you be jealous? If it weren’t for you, neither of us would ever get anything done.”

You secretly agree, but you feel that saying it out loud would kind of damage your position here. Looking back to Kanaya, you say, “But I’m not jealous of the attention she gets. She deserves that. It’s hers.”

Kanaya looks down. This is the first time you’ve seen her blushing, and one of the first – since the day she asked you out – that she’s seemed out of her element. “Never mind. It’s nothing. I’m just being selfish.”

“Hey, no, don’t say that.” You pull her into a hug. “If it’ll make you happy, I’ll do it. I just…wish you could have told me that at the beginning, instead of trying to bluff me into it.”

She relaxes and holds you tight. “Thank you, Feferi. I know that it may not mean much to you, but it’s the world to me.”

“Careful with the apologies,” Aradia says flatly, “or I’ll start to think you loosened that tile on purpose.”

“No, that was just because I think you look sexy in a cast.”

Aradia throws a pillow at her head; you intercept it and throw it back, and, well…things go from there. There’s a lot of work to do before the show, but it can wait.

xxx

“We  _really_  shouldn’t have waited to start working on this,” you grumble as Kanaya pins you into the third dress.

“Hush,” she says absentmindedly. “I can’t focus when you’re breathing.”

You turn your eyes — not your head, though; you’d rather not end up as a pincushion — to look at Aradia. “How do you stand this?”

“I don’t breathe,” she says, not looking up from her book. She shifts her injured limb to a more comfortable spot atop its pile of pillows. “Didn’t you used to joke that I was a ghost?”

“You’re still breathing,” Kanaya says in a singsong voice. “Do you want this to  _fit_  or do you want your precious  _air_?”

“I’d prefer the air, thanks.”

“I’ll be happy to oblige you, Your Highness, as soon as I’m done with this seam. Until then, zip it.”

You roll your eyes, and Aradia giggles. She hasn’t said anything about it, but she’s been much cheerier since you agreed to take her place in the fashion show. It was probably because she was five parts nervous about performing at the show and ten parts depressed that she let Kanaya down; now that neither one was an issue, the quiet tension had soaked out of her, and her eyes sparkled with renewed warmth. It was a refreshing sight.

Kanaya finishes pinning, strips you out of the dress, and carries it carefully over to the sewing machine. “Good thing I brought extra fabric,” she mutters.

“Hey! What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Kanaya looks up, surprised. “I, uh…I didn’t mean it like that.”

You stick your tongue out at her. “I know. Just messing with you. Hey,  _I’m_  the one who told you I was out of shape for this.”

“Doesn’t look like that from here,” Aradia says with a wink.

She’s trying to stave off your nervousness but it doesn’t help much. In fact, your nerves are jangling worse than ever. You sigh. “Aradia, how am I supposed to do this?”

“You’ve done it before.” She carefully navigates over to you, dragging her hurt leg, and throws an arm around your shoulders. “You’re out there for Kanaya, not for anyone else. That’s what I always focus on when I’m walking. I don’t care about what anyone thinks but the two of you.”

“I don’t want to wreck her career, though.” You flop down on the bed dramatically. “Augh! Kanaya, what are you thinking, asking me to do this?!”

“I’m thinking that I’ve got enough prestige, and enough reputation as an eccentric, to get away with at least one bizarre publicity stunt before my career crashes and burns,” Kanaya says calmly over the steady  _chunk chunk chunk_ of the sewing machine.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” you say, and since you’re the person who  _handles_  her publicity you’re pretty damn sure you have a solid case here.

Kanaya just shrugs, and you go back to worrying silently until the next time she needs you as a dressform. Hopefully the whole debacle will be over soon.

xxx

You got no sleep last night. Instead of catching a few hours’ rest, you spent the morning practicing your walk and calling in some of Kanaya’s favors to the show-runners.

Fortunately, it’s a small show, being put on by a private company with an interest in the work of Kanaya and a few other independent designers. That was one of the reasons Kanaya was able to get them to approve Aradia specifically (though she was usually able to get her own way regardless). The small size of the potential audience was also the best explanation as to why she was able to get  _you_  in as a substitute model.

So there’s less pressure on you than there would be otherwise, but it’s still driving you crazy. Aradia’s doing her best to keep you sane but there’s only so much she can do when she also has to keep Kanaya from ripping her hair out. (That’s usually your job.) You could tell that Aradia wasn’t quite used to this kind of damage control — two years in the Israeli Defense Forces gave her killer reflexes, but she’d also gained a sort of military bluntness. Not exactly ideal for pacifying flighty girlfriends.

But neither girlfriend is here with you now, behind the catwalk, and you don’t know what to do. You’re  _this_  close to just calling the whole thing off, begging Kanaya for forgiveness later and taking your chances. There was a  _reason_  you left modeling, dammit, and it wasn’t just because you liked the business end of things better.

Now it’s time for you to go out, and the heels feel like stilts on your feet as you step out. The first dress clings to you and it’s actually pretty damn sexy; you felt like a foxy bitch when Kanaya practically poured you into it last night. Kanaya has something of a reputation for designing fashionable clothes that actually  _look good_  on people instead of just sort of existing as abstract art pieces. You love that about her, and you love that about her style, and that’s one of the few thoughts that keeps you going as you trot out into the blinding lights and judging eyes. The other is a mantra that you’d repeated to others in the past as a comforting gesture. Everyone’s eyes are going to be on the dress. Not you. The dress.

But you get out to the end, and your eyes catch Aradia and Kanaya’s, and they’re looking at you like you’re some kind of goddess. You see that pure worship in their eyes, and you’re not sure you deserve it, but suddenly this whole ridiculous thing feels like it was worth it. You turn around and strut your stuff back up the catwalk, feeling a hundred times better than you did before.

xxx

Aradia takes her coffee black. Kanaya, on the other hand, takes hers with more cream and sugar than you should physically be able to fit in one cup. The two coffees nestle in the drink carrier next to your black tea and jostle a bit as you set it down on the table.

It’s a nice sunny Sunday morning, and you spent all day yesterday strutting around in heels. The bright lights and shining faces all sort of blended together after a while. But now it’s over. You feel like you should be pissed or drained or at least relieved, but then you see your girlfriends sitting at their little tiny table in this tiny cafe in the big huge city of Paris, and instead you feel loved. Kanaya is browsing fashion news blogs on her phone, reading the pieces about your performance out loud with a voice full of pride. Aradia’s just sitting there quietly, smiling and watching you with eyes full of lovely hyperbolic words that she doesn’t need to say. Kanaya paused her narration when you went to get the drinks, and she starts it up again now with extra fervor, focusing on the bits that make you sound good and downplaying the ones that highlight her accomplishments. She’s always been sweet like that.

You look out into the streets of Paris, letting Kanaya’s words and Aradia’s glances wash over you, and things look a little brighter than before. Timeless boulevards, full of life, surround you—and each one beckons, promising an adventure down its paths. You feel invigorated despite your exhaustion.

Maybe, you think, the best part of this city is who you share it with.


End file.
